1. travel
2. tourist destinations
3. canada

A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose:
Getting Young Canadians from
education to Employment
October 2014
Get plugged in.
As Canada’s largest and most influential business association, we are the primary and
vital connection between business and the federal government. With our network of over
450 chambers of commerce and boards of trade, representing 200,000 businesses of all
sizes, in all sectors of the economy and in all regions, we help shape public policy and
decision-making to the benefit of businesses, communities and families across Canada.
Be heard.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Global Public Affairs, specifically John Allen and Naomi Miller, for their work
on this report. Skills project sponsors provided valuable contributions. The original report
proposal was shaped by members of the Human Resources Policy Committee of the Canadian
Chamber of Commerce. The contact for the report is Sarah Anson-Cartwright, Director,
Skills Policy.
This report was made possible by the
generous support of our sponsors
Diamond
Platinum
Gold
Dow Chemical Canada
Polytechnics Canada
Cummins Eastern Canada
Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions
Table of Contents
President’s Message5
1. Introduction6
Chart: Soft skills are important in entry-level hiring
7
2. Overview9
3. Labour Market Information10
4. Career Decision-making13
Charts:
Changes in application numbers, selected fields of study, Ontario, 2004-14, Indexed to 2004
14
Arts, science, business, and engineering applications as percentage of total, Ontario, 2004-14
14
Choices students make that influence their future careers
16
The perception challenge of vocation education
17
Main influencers and decision points for students ages 13-18 in Ontario
18
5. Work-integrated Learning19
Sidebars:
Transforming students through the co-op experience
20
Tapping the talent pipeline: Why co-op works for employers
22
Complementary credentials: the role of graduate certificate programs 23
Employers can step up with internships
24
How does Germany do it?
25
6. National Leadership and Coordination
27
7. Recommendations
29
President’s Message
As Canada comes to terms
with its skills challenges and
the numbers of unemployed
and under-employed
workers, employers,
educators and governments
are facing great uncertainty
about whether we will have
enough graduates in
high-demand fields or with
the skills most sought after.
If Canada is to successfully tackle its skills gap and
ensure its economic growth, we have to give special
attention to the largest cohort of labour force entrants
each year: young people.
The skills issue facing youth is the focus of great
concern. Canada’s results in international education
surveys have been mixed. Our highly-educated youth
may still be falling short of the skills needed for our
economy to succeed. Without action, this shortage
is likely to increase in future as labour market needs
continue to evolve.
Youth unemployment rates have also remained high
in the post-recession period, prompting the House of
Commons Standing Committee on Finance to study
youth employment and table a report in June 2014.
Across the country, there is a growing understanding
that closing the skills gap means better aligning our
education and training systems to our labour market
needs. It is a concern that led the federal Minister of
Employment and Social Development, Jason Kenney,
to organize a mission to Germany, Europe’s strongest
labour market where the “dual training” system
enables post-secondary students to segue seamlessly
into employment via apprenticeships across 350
occupations.
At a national skills summit in June 2014, a strong
consensus emerged on the need for better labour
market information to help youth connect to available
jobs and for more responsiveness in the educational
system to labour market needs. Three weeks after that
summit, provincial-territorial education and labour
market ministers jointly hosted a skills symposium
with stakeholders to similarly probe improving
education-employment linkages.
“We have to do a better job in preparing young
people for the labour market,” is a common refrain
among key players on this topic.
For Canadian youth, it is essential the education or
training they get is relevant to the job market they
will enter. First, they need to know where the jobs
will be. Second, they need to know what those jobs
will be so they can plan their education and training
accordingly. Third, they need education that is not
just job training but equips them to be adaptable.
Employers do not always provide clear and strong
signals to youth. That needs to change, and this report
explores how to improve it.
At every step of this discussion on youth, the
Canadian Chamber of Commerce has been
engaged with government and stakeholders. With
our members in both the employer and educator
communities, the Canadian Chamber brings a
demand-meets-supply perspective to the
need for better labour market information and
improving connections between business and
post-secondary education.
With this report, we investigate the state of key factors
affecting youth’s successful transition to employment
in Canada:
1. Labour market information
2. Career decision-making
3. Work-integrated learning
Let us do our best to help young people make
more informed decisions on their future education
and the skills they need. Let us give them the best
opportunities to find employment in Canada’s
dynamic economy.
Hon. Perrin Beatty
President and CEO
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
5
1. Introduction
Skills shortages1 have regularly been identified as one
of the top 10 barriers to competitiveness in Canada
by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, costing the
Canadian economy billions in lost GDP annually.2
There is now a rare consensus about skills needs and
challenges in this country, across the demand and
supply perspectives.3 An aging population will only
exacerbate the problem in the coming years, especially
for the most in-demand professions in the skilled
trades and STEM-based occupations (where STEM
refers to science, technology, engineering and math).
With this report the Canadian Chamber of Commerce
focuses on the role of the education-to-employment
transition in mitigating or aggravating the skills gaps.
Specifically, this report addresses the ways in which
all stakeholders, including government, employers,
workers, education providers and students, will need
to adapt and collaborate to improve the efficiency of
the labour market.
While the supply side of talent is supported by
a range of education and training entities—from
universities to colleges to polytechnics to private
training providers—this report will put the spotlight
on publicly-funded institutions. Since most Canadian
education is publicly funded and a public good, data
and research are important to address the changing
dynamics and outcomes of that public good. They
also help publicly-funded post-secondary educational
(PSE) institutions meet their diverse missions—either
knowledge creation or employment.
Based on a review of recent Canadian research, we
find a lack of labour market information (LMI), a
mixed and often ad hoc approach to career guidance
among secondary and post-secondary institutions
and a valuable opportunity to develop connections
between post-secondary education providers and
employers, particularly through work-integrated
learning and training programs.
Contrary to what we may believe, the essential
skills that workers require to perform and thrive in
the world of employment are seen to be lacking in
Canada. Challenges with adult literacy are a concern,
with an estimated four out of 10 adults lacking
sufficient levels of literacy to be fully competent in
most jobs.4 For Canadians aged 16 to 24, literacy rates
have fallen below the OECD average.5 Meanwhile,
Canada’s adult numeracy rates are also in decline6
and the level of math skills among 15-year-olds
is disappointing, given the critical role of STEM
education to in-demand professions, the skilled trades
and the jobs of the future.7
We therefore identify the development of basic skills,
literacy and numeracy, as well as technological
literacy and problem solving, as a priority issue in
improving the education-to-employment transition
in Canada. These skills should act as foundations to
enable people to benefit from further training, both in
educational programs and in the workplace.
1
The OECD offers a definition of “skills shortages” as follows: “Skill shortages arise when employers are unable to recruit staff with the
required skills in the accessible labour market and at the going rate of pay and working conditions due to a lack of an adequately qualified
workforce. They can be defined in terms of unfilled and/or hard-to-fill vacancies.” As cited in the 2014 OECD questionnaire “Anticipating
and Responding to Changing Skill Needs.”
2
Skills gaps cost Ontario’s economy up to $24.3 billion in forgone GDP annually, as estimated in: Stuckey, James and Daniel Munro.
The Cost of Ontario’s Skills Gap. The Conference Board of Canada. June 2013
3
The consensus on the skills gap is separate from the debate over labour shortages; the latter topic is explained in Philip Cross’s recent
paper, Do Labour Shortages Exist in Canada? Reconciling the Views of Employers and Economists. Fraser Institute. 2014.
4
Conference Board of Canada. How Canada Performs. 2014. www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/default.aspx
5
OECD. Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. 2013. p. 73 http://skills.oecd.org/OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf
6
OECD. Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. 2013. http://skills.oecd.org/OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf
7
“Over the past nine years, the Canadian scores in mathematics have declined” according to the PISA (Programme for International Student
Assessment) 2012 Highlights report for Canada available here: www.cmec.ca/docs/pisa2012/PISA2012_Highlights_EN_Web.pdf . PISA is
the OECD international tests of the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
6
There is a dearth of available data reflecting the
supply of, and demand for, specific skills in Canada.
Although educational attainment does not necessarily
align with skills attainment, education credentials
are often used as a proxy for job requirements. The
distinction between qualifications and skills is crucial,
according to Andreas Schleicher, Director of the
OECD’s Education and Skills Directorate. Speaking
in Charlottetown, PEI, in July 2014, Schleicher told
a conference of Canada’s provincial and territorial
education and labour market ministers that today’s
economy rewards workers “not for what they know, but
for what they can do,” because in today’s labour market,
qualifications are poor descriptors of workers’ skills.8
Employers value general business skills, or
so-called “soft skills” in new hires, specifically,
skills in relationship-building, communications,
problem-solving and analysis.9 Yet, there are concerns
about the ability of today’s high school students to
develop those soft skills given the decline in Canada’s
scores in OECD surveys of 15 year-olds.
Soft skills are important in entry-level hiring
People skills/relationship-building
Communication skills
Problem solving skills
Analytical abilities
Leadership skills
Functional knowledge
Industry-specific knowledge & experience
1st priority
2nd priority
Technological literacy
3rd priority
Project management skills
Creative thinking
Other
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Total respondents
Source: Canadian Council of Chief Executives as presented in the OECD’s Economic Survey of Canada 2014.
8
Schleicher, Andreas. Keynote speech. Skills for the Future: Provincial and territorial education and labour market ministers. Charlottetown, PEI.
July 9, 2014.
9
OECD. Economic Survey of Canada. 2014. p. 118.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
7
This trend does not bode well for the versatility and
dynamism of Canada’s workforce as literacy and
numeracy skills, along with soft workplace skills such
as communications, are by nature transferable. Rick
Miner therefore proposes that “all our educational
programs should have both a content portion
(specifics of what is being studied) and an essential
skills component” to ensure graduates develop
the skills necessary, not only for the jobs they are
pursuing now but also for the jobs they may want
to pursue later.10 A skills-oriented, as opposed to
credential-oriented, approach to education would
allow graduates to market themselves to employers
more directly while allowing employers to evaluate
potential hires more efficiently.
A survey of over 15,000 Canadian university
graduates found that 51 per cent felt their
undergraduate education contributed much or very
much to their development of general
employment-related skills and knowledge while
44 per cent claimed to have received equivalent
preparation in specific employment-related skills and
knowledge.11 This disconnect between education and
preparation for employment may help to explain why
the average time it takes for Canadians to transition
from high school graduation to full-time work is
eight years, though post-secondary education (PSE)
programs typically take two to four years.12 Evidently,
the transition from PSE to employment is not smooth
for Canadian youth.
10
Miner, Rick. The Great Canadian Skills Mismatch: People without jobs, jobs without people, and MORE. Miner Management Consultants. March
2014. Available online at www.minerandminer.ca/data/Miner_March_2014_final(2).pdf
11
Prairie Research Associates. Canadian University Research Consortium 2012 Survey of Graduating Undergraduate Students. June 2012.
12
McDaniel, Susan A. et al. Is the Math Sufficient? Aging Workforce and the Future Labour Market in Canada. 2014.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
8
2. Overview
This report identifies policy areas affecting skills gaps,
both in Canada and globally, and provides a review
of recent contributions to the policy debate. We
find these policy areas reflect what is lacking in the
Canadian education system and labour market:
1. Labour market information (LMI): This section
examines Canada’s collection, interpretation and
dissemination of data reflecting labour market
conditions and projections.
2. Career decision-making: This section describes
the factors and influences, both formal and
informal, that shape Canadian students’ career
interests and goals.
3. Work-integrated learning (WIL): This section
addresses the various forms of education and
training that occur in the workplace, such as co-op
and internship programs, and the extent to which
they are used or underused in Canada.
4. National leadership and coordination: This
section examines the possible ways in which
Canada could improve youth’s school-to-work
transition to mitigate the skills gap, now and in
the future.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
9
3. Labour Market Information (LMI)
Summary
• Labour market information collection,
presentation and dissemination are lacking
in Canada
• Absence of data on skills shortages at the
local and sectoral levels impedes political
action by government and business
• Absence of data on the career outcomes
of post-secondary students leaves
prospective students in the dark
• Poor presentation and dissemination
of data can lead to uninformed career
guidance and decision-making among
educators and students, respectively
Labour market information (LMI) is essential in
guiding career decision-making, curricula design,
employer recruitment strategies and education
and employment policy-making at provincial and
federal levels. In Canada, LMI currently brings
more confusion than clarity as discrepancies in data
collection and interpretation exist even within the
federal government.
In a recent Institute for Research on Public Policy
(IRPP) report, Don Drummond points out that
while the 2013 and 2014 federal budgets observe a
job vacancy rate of roughly four per cent, Statistics
Canada estimates the same rate to be 1.3 per cent.13 In
Drummond’s view, “The difference is truly a game
changer. Statistics Canada’s result…points to a fairly
limited mismatching. The budget result suggests there
is a large skills mismatch problem, with the logical
inference that there is a looming aggregate
labour shortage.”
TD Economics observes skills mismatching in some
sectors and provinces and claims that insufficient LMI
precludes reliable forecasting of labour market trends
but does not predict an imminent skills shortage.14
Similarly, the Parliamentary Budget Officer noted
pockets of labour market tightness at the regional and
sectoral levels but no evidence of a national labour
shortage in Canada in early 2014.15 Cliff Halliwell
predicts labour supply and demand will balance in
Canada over the long term, even as the baby boom
generation retires.16
13
Drummond, Don. IRPP Insight. Wanted: Good Canadian Labour Market Information. June 2014. http://irpp.org/wp-content/
uploads/2014/06/insight-no6.pdf
14
TD Economics. Jobs in Canada: Where, What and For Whom?. 22 October 2013. Available online at www.td.com/document/PDF/economics/
special/JobsInCanada.pdf
15
Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Labour Market Assessment 2014. Ottawa, March 25, 2014. Available online at: www.pbo-dpb.gc.ca/
files/files/Labour_Note_EN.pdf
16
Halliwell, Cliff. IRPP Study no. 42. No Shortage of Opportunity: Policy Ideas to Strengthen Canada’s Labour Market in the Coming Decade.
November 2013. http://irpp.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/research/competitiveness/no-shortage-of-opportunity/halliwell-no42.pdf
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
10
In a more recent Fraser Institute paper, Philip
Cross examines the opposing views of employers
and economists over whether Canada has labour
shortages. The disconnect can be explained in part
because “economists look for evidence of shortages
in data, which inevitably are backward looking,”
whereas firms are looking to the future, “knowing
they will soon have to replace their oldest workers
with new sources of labour.”17 Confusion about the
state of Canada’s labour market is due not only to
conflicting analyses but to an absence of data. As TD
Economics states, “When it comes to labour market
information, we are currently operating in a data
vacuum and flying in the fog without instruments.”18
For example, Statistics Canada cancelled the
Workplace and Employment Survey in 2006. This
survey was an important source of information on
the frequency and outcomes of workplace training as
well as workplace conditions.19 In early 2012, Statistics
Canada instated a one-time workplace survey;
the results of that survey have yet to be released.
Information on the employment of post-secondary
graduates is also hard to come by. The latest results
of the National Graduates Survey, which tracks
how graduates from the year 2009-2010 fared in the
labour market as of 2013, are currently available only
upon purchase and in raw data form. Students, in
particular, need more than costly raw data if they are
to use LMI to inform their career decision-making.
Improving labour market information is a necessary
condition for identifying skills gaps across Canada,
as all stakeholders in the school-to-work transition
need clearer information about the kinds of skills
graduates acquire and those employers require.
Drummond recommends that Statistics Canada and
the relevant department collect this information and
for Employment and Social Development Canada
(ESDC) to disseminate it in a way that allows all
individuals easy and affordable access. He suggests
the Forum of Labour Market Ministers should be the
main co-ordinating body nationally, while others
suggest creating a national arm’s-length LMI agency.20
Similarly, Rick Miner has called for long-term
funding for Statistics Canada to collect information on
educational attainment and labour market dynamics
via a reinstated long-form census and an updated
Canadian Occupation Projection System (COPS).21
LMI is generally tied to the National Occupational
Classification (NOC). Employers find NOC codes
insufficient as the codes focus on occupations and
credentials but not skills. It is skills that employers
value; to tell an employer that an individual has a
degree and a few years of experience does not come
close to determining if she or he has appropriate skills
for a specific job. The addition of a skills dictionary to
the NOC would result in more relevant data.
17
Cross, Philip. Do Labour Shortages Exist in Canada? Reconciling the Views of Employers and Economists. Fraser Institute. 2014.
18
TD Economics. Ibid.
19
Drummond. Wanted: Good Canadian Labour Market Information. 2014.
20
For example, see the pre-budget 2015 submission of Polytechnics Canada.
21
Miner, Rick. Miner Management Consultants. The Great Canadian Skills Mismatch: People without jobs, jobs without people, and MORE.
March 2014. www.minerandminer.ca/data/Miner_March_2014_final(2).pdf
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
11
New and improved LMI must be nuanced at regional
and sectoral levels in order to be useful to job-seekers,
employers and policy-makers. The federal
government recently made a $14 million investment
to this end with the expansion of the job vacancy
survey from 15,000 to 100,000 employers and the
wage survey from 56,000 and 100,000 employers
Canada-wide. More granular data will be necessary,
however, if employers and job-seekers are to use LMI
to inform their decisions on a local level. In addition,
the information is unlikely to be useful unless it is
freely accessible and intelligible to all stakeholders.
ESDC recently relaunched its Job Bank to include
not only online job vacancy listings but also data on
average wages by occupation, city or province as well
as a tool that identifies the basic skills required in
various fields. However, Job Bank lacks information
on the supply and demand for particular jobs at
the local level because Statistics Canada does not
currently collect that information. The Job Bank’s
limited labour market forecasting is informed by
out-of-date information and thus is of little use to
students who are in the process of choosing a field
of study.
McKinsey points out that some countries are more
successfully collecting, packaging and disseminating
LMI to students and job-seekers.22 In 2012, the United
Kingdom launched its National Career Service, which
provides LMI and career advice both online and by
phone through its hotline. The website contains
up-to-date LMI by sector and region, including
forecasting to the year 2020. It also provides guidance
to students aged 13 to 16 as they select school courses
and decide whether and where to pursue PSE. The
service reports an 85 per cent satisfaction rate among
its users, which number more than one million
per year.
Australia offers another example, where the
Department of Employment publishes reports across
occupations and regions.23 In addition, it releases a
national report every six months with information
on skills shortages at the state, territory and national
level and a list of skills shortage rankings, where
shortages are predicted five years out for
some occupations.24
Career Choice is a new online tool that ESDC is set
to introduce soon. It will offer information on the
benefits of various fields of study (including wage
trends and employment rates) to help youth in
making career decisions and pursuing the relevant
education and training.
22
McKinsey & Company. Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works. January 2013. http://mckinseyonsociety.com/educationto-employment/report/
23
See for example: http://employment.gov.au/occupational-skill-shortages-information
24
See Appendix 2 for Australia’s list of skills shortage rankings: http://docs.employment.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/
skillshortagesaustralia2013_14.pdf
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
12
4. Career Decision-making
Summary
• Career decision-making among secondary
and post-secondary students is
insufficiently informed by Labour
Market Information, including labour
market projections
• Career education lacks consistency
nation-wide in terms of approach
and funding
• Training, qualifications, resources and the
positioning of career guidance counsellors
vary between academic institutions
• Students are constrained in their career
decision-making by cultural stigmas
associated with skilled trades and
vocational education
• Private sector engagement with education
providers would enlighten students and
educators as they consider career options
Thorough, relevant and accessible labour market
information is important to career decision-making
among middle school, secondary and post-secondary
students and the parents, school counsellors,
teachers and professors who guide them. How this
information is communicated is equally important as
students make decisions that will ultimately position
them for life after education.
Alex Usher, President of Higher Education Strategy
Associates, has pointed out that “over time, students
do, in fact, respond to changes in labour market
25
conditions.”25 Since 2003, the share of applications to
undergraduate arts programs in Ontario relative to
all applications province-wide have fallen by 30 per
cent, while the share of applications to engineering
programs has risen by nearly 40 per cent. Since
2004, the numbers of applications to undergraduate
nursing, engineering, and math programs in Ontario
have risen by 150 per cent, 90 per cent and 81 per
cent, respectively, while the number of applications
to journalism programs has fallen by over 50 per cent
since peaking in 2008.
Usher, Alex. Trends in Applications. Higher Education Strategy Associates. 14 May 2014. http://higheredstrategy.com/trends-inapplications/
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
13
Changes in application numbers, selected fields of study, Ontario, 2004-14,
Indexed to 2004
250
230
210
190
170
150
130
110
90
70
50
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Fine Arts
Journalism
Nursing
Social Work
Math
Total
2013
2014
Arts, science, business and engineering applications as percentage of total,
Ontario, 2004-14
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
2003
2004
2005
Arts
2006
2007
Science
2008
2009
2010
Business
2011
2012
2013
2014
Engineering
Source: Alex Usher, “Trends in Applications,” Higher Education Strategy Associates, May 14, 2014.
http://higheredstrategy.com/trends-in-applications/
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
14
These trends lead us to conclude that high school
students would (if they could) integrate new, more
granular labour market information into their career
decision-making processes. For example, information
that provides a detailed picture of skills mismatching
among provinces could incent young workers to
migrate out-of-province in pursuit of employment.
More robust labour market information may therefore
help to address stagnant labour mobility rates
in Canada.26
administrators and government and business
representatives with the purpose of helping
students understand the career prospects of various
programs in both universities and colleges, as well
as apprenticeship programs.29 According to Miner,
status quo career counselling by teachers, parents,
administrators and guidance counsellors propagates
an arbitrary “PSE hierarchy” in which university
programs always outrank college programs,
regardless of graduates’ employment outcomes.
Among Aboriginal youth in post-secondary
education, many are studying in areas related to
the public sector.27 While this may reflect where
Aboriginal peoples’ employment is highest, it may
be a worrying trend relative to their opportunities to
participate in the broader labour market, especially
in areas of high demand. Recent research by TD
Economics suggests a need to promote a broader
range of disciplines to Aboriginal youth, rather
than the tight concentration in public-sector
oriented fields.28
McKinsey argues that post-secondary institutions can
join government in contributing to the information
available by collecting and publishing data30 on
their graduates’ job placements, income, and career
trajectories.31 This could play an important role in
informing current and prospective students’ career
decision-making by allowing them to contrast the
labour market outcomes of college and university
graduates.32 Transparency on the part of all
post-secondary institutions may help to achieve the
“parity of esteem” between vocational and university
education that Minister of Employment and Social
Development Jason Kenney called for earlier in 2014
by providing students with an objective yardstick for
evaluating PSE options.
Rick Miner argues that new and improved labour
market information should inform “mandatory”
career counselling for secondary school students,
parents, teachers, guidance counsellors,
26
TD Economics. Jobs in Canada: Where, What and For Whom? October 22, 2013. Available online at www.td.com/document/PDF/
economics/special/JobsInCanada.pdf
27
TD Economics. Employment and Education Among Aboriginal Peoples. October 7, 2013. p. 5.
28
Ibid.
29
Miner, Rick. The Great Canadian Skills Mismatch: People without jobs, jobs without people, and MORE. March 2014. Miner Management
Consultants. Available online at www.minerandminer.ca/data/Miner_March_2014_final(2).pdf
30
McKinsey. Education to Employment. 2012.
31
It is costly to track career trajectories of graduates at the institutional level. Universities have recently collaborated to do a five-year
follow-up survey of graduates to replace the discontinued National Graduates Survey. Universities are currently analyzing that data and
working to find ways to disseminate results.
32
Many colleges and universities do produce data on employment and graduation rates. Part of the challenges is that college and
university systems and the differing program mix at individual institutions make it difficult to directly compare the statistics. For
example, Ontario colleges and universities have many years of data on both employment and graduation rates. Several provinces make
this type of data available, but the data are not available centrally with the appropriate notes and context to make it as useful as possible.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
15
Post-secondary
Secondary
Choices Students Make that Influence Their Future Careers
Choice 1:
Applied or academic –
decision between applied
courses that focus on
practical learning or
academic courses that are
more theoretical
Choice 2:
Subjects – some provinces
require core subjects to be
taken until graduation,
students must decide
which courses can lead to
employment and what they
need for further education
Choice 3:
When – different provinces
start to offer students
options at different ages,
with most course decisions
made in grade 10, but some
are made earlier which starts
to reduce career options
Choice 1:
Where – if not going
into direct employment
general choices are college,
polytechnic, university or
apprenticeships
Choice 2:
Subject – students can
take academic subjects that
maintain a level of choice
of career or professional
subjects that specifically
lead into a career
Choice 3:
Qualification – technical,
vocational and apprenticeship
programs can last 1-4 years,
college diplomas 1-3 years,
applied bachelor degrees and
bachelor degrees
3-4 years
Employment
Source: Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials, Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. 2010.
Still, cultural biases against apprenticeship programs
and skilled trades programs may be difficult to
combat. In 2007, the Higher Education Quality
Council of Ontario found that only six per cent of
students and seven per cent of parents favoured
vocational training over university education.
Across Canada, secondary school students have
access to youth apprenticeship programs whereby
students can earn both income and school credit, yet
33
apprenticeship programs continue to carry a stigma
among Canadian teachers, parents and students
who view these programs as “easy credit for low
academic achievers,” according to Neil Sandell.33
The Millennium Scholarship Foundation believes
that such biases contribute to low enrolment rates
(below 20 per cent) in apprenticeship courses at the
secondary school level.
Sandell, Neil. Atkinson Public Policy Fellowship Series. Good Work Hunting: In Search of Answers for the Young and Jobless. 2012.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
16
The perception challenge of vocational education
Vocational/skills program
Academic program
Value of program types*
% of respondents
Most helpful for getting a job
More valued by society
Personally prefer to pursue
69
36
31
64
52
Of those who would prefer vocational, 38% attended
such a program if they went on to post-secondary
48
Of those who prefer academic, 80% attended an
academic program if they went on to post-secondary
* Now I would like to understand how you value different post-secondary education options. For each of the following
statements, please tell me your opinion on which type of education-vocational/skills or academic-better applied.
Source: McKinsey survey, Aug-Sept 2012
A consistent approach to tracking and broadcasting
post-secondary student employment outcomes could
provide a standard basis for career counselling in
secondary schools. As The Learning Partnership has
pointed out, a lack of consistency in career education
across Canada may allow under-trained and
under-funded career educators to slip through the
cracks.34 Based on interviews with career educators
and counsellors at secondary schools, Sandell reports
that these teachers can be inadequately trained for
career instruction.35 According to other research,
career educators across Canada are juggling activities
such as administrative tasks along with their
responsibilities as guidance counsellors.36
role operating in isolation from the system within
academic institutions. A lack of investment in this
role is illustrated by college student populations
in Ontario outpacing the growth in number of
counsellors by a rate of six to one.37 Lees and Dietsche
point out that as few as 18 per cent of students use the
counselling services available and that the time spent
by the counsellors on career counselling is down
to just 16 per cent. The potential to use the career
counsellor role as a multiplier within the organization
is also underutilized, with 89 per cent of counsellors
reporting that they never or rarely engage in staff or
faculty training.
The role of a career counsellor has not been
adequately studied, but initial research by Lees and
Dietsche points to an ill-defined, under-resourced
34
The Learning Partnership. It’s Their Future: A Pan-Canadian Study of Career Education. November 2013. www.thelearningpartnership.ca/
files/download/333d0409f3d6d42
35
Sandell. Good Work Hunting. 2012.
36
Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. Pan-Canadian Study of Career Development Practices in K-12 Public Schools-Final Report. 2009.
37
Lees, Jim. Dietsche, Peter. An Analysis of Counselling Services in Ontario Colleges Initial Report. October 2012.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
17
Main Influencers and Decision Points for Students Ages 13-18 in Ontario
Parents, Family
Teachers
Decision point 1:
Grade 8 (age 13-14)
Students choose
between applied,
academic,
apprenticeship and
other courses for grade
9 and 10, which
influences the courses
they can take in grade
11, and their
post-secondary options.
Potential to access and influence
Peers, Role
Models
Career
Guidance
Decision point 2:
Grade 11-12 (16-18)
Students choose
specific subjects based
on post-secondary
plans of workplace,
college, university, or
other, and can include
options to get
on-the-job or
specialized training
Post-secondary
Institutions
Employers
Decision point 3:
Grade 12 (17-18)
Students choose
between going
directly into work,
apprenticeships,
colleges, polytechnics
or universities, which
courses to take, and
what qualifications
they are aiming for
Employment
Influencers
High amount of access and influence
Source: People for Education, based on Ontario
Many have called for partnerships between education
providers and employers in engaging students at
both secondary and post-secondary education levels.
The Canadian Association of Career Educators and
Employers (CACEE) claims employers have curtailed
their investments in on-campus recruiting at
post-secondary institutions and calls on the private
sector to reinvest in campus recruitment.38 Coates
and Miner argue that in order to disrupt the
“student-driven, supply-side model” of
post-secondary education, companies need to
engage education providers more actively, informing
students and educators of the skills the workforce
demands.39 The Higher Education Council of Ontario
found in its survey of Ontario post-secondary
graduates in 2012, students who participated in
work-integrated learning (WIL) through programs
such as internships, co-ops and practicums gained
clarification of their career interests and goals.40
In Canada, the Social Research and Demonstration
Corporation investigated the use of web-based
technologies to help young people in making career
choices.41 One site that is an example of this approach
is the Alberta Learning Information Service (ALIS).
ALIS hosts a variety of information, including
CAREERInsight, a modular tool leading people
through a career planning process, a job postings
aggregator and some useful LMI, such as the average
wages and salaries for over 500 occupations. The site
contains individual sections designed specifically
for high school students, PSE students, educators/
counsellors and job seekers, facilitating these
stakeholders’ access to relevant information.
38
Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers (CACEE). Call for Action on Unemployment, Underemployment and Skills
Shortages. 25 June 2013. http://cacee.com/_Library/docs/Final_-_Call_for_Action_on_Unemployment_Underemployment_and_Skills_
Shortages.pdf
39
Coates, Ken and Rick Miner. “Matching Jobs and People.” Policy Options. February 2013. http://archive.irpp.org/po/archive/feb13/
coates%20miner.pdf
40
Sattler, Peggy and Julie Peters. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Work-Integrated Learning in Ontario’s Postsecondary Sector;
The Experience of Ontario Graduates. 2013.
41
De Raaf, Shawn. Taylor, Shek-wai Hui. Vincent, Carole. Social Research and Demonstration Corporation. Career Motion: How Web-based
technologies can improve career choices for young people. 2012.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
18
5. Work-integrated Learning (WIL)
Summary
•
Work-integrated learning (WIL) includes
co-op and internship programs, among
other workplace training programs42
•
WIL benefits students by allowing them
to gain experience before entering the
workforce and contributing to their
career education
Work-integrated learning (WIL) is the term used
to refer to “the process whereby students come to
learn from experiences in educational and practice
settings.” Seven types of WIL are listed in a report
issued by the Higher Education Quality Council of
Ontario, cited here verbatim:
•
Apprenticeship: Training that combines
learning on the job with classroom instruction,
leading to a certificate of apprenticeship
•
Field placement: Practical experience in a real
work setting
•
WIL facilitates the recruitment process
for employers and is associated with
productivity gains
•
•
WIL is underused by university students,
largely because universities have not
institutionalized WIL the way colleges
and polytechnics have
Mandatory professional practice: Work hours
needed to obtain a licence to practise or a
professional designation, or to register with a
regulatory college/professional association
•
Not enough employers, especially smaller
firms and organizations, take sufficient
advantage of WIL
Co-op: Academic study that alternates with
paid work experience developed and/or
approved by the college/university
•
Internship: Program-related experience in a
professional work environment
•
Applied research projects: Student projects to
address specific business or industry problems
•
Service learning: Student projects to address
identified community needs or global issues43
•
Business-education partnerships play a critical
role not only in career education but in ensuring
that students develop the skills and competencies
necessary to succeed in their chosen career paths.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) argues that
apprenticeships and workplace training are key to
addressing high youth unemployment rates, which
are in part due to young graduates’ lack of work
experience as they enter the labour market. Whether
or not they lead directly to full-time employment,
paid internships and other forms of workplace
training can provide youth with the experience and
skills they can leverage to find other opportunities.44
42
This report will not address the subject of unpaid internships.
43
Sattler, Peggy and Julie Peters. Work-Integrated Learning in Ontario’s Postsecondary Sector: The Experience of Ontario Graduates.
Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. 2013.
44
World Economic Forum. Matching Skills and Labour Market Needs: Building Social Partnerships for Better Skills and Better Jobs. January 2014.
www3.weforum.org/docs/GAC/2014/WEF_GAC_Employment_MatchingSkillsLabourMarket_Report_2014.pdf
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
19
Transforming Students through the
Co-op Experience
Engineering, business and computer science are
the programs many of us associate with co-op
programs. But how many of us would consider co-op
placements for humanities students?
In fact, students in the humanities need the co-op
experience as much, or possibly more, than students
in disciplines where co-ops have historically been
offered. That is the view of Norah McRae, who
makes the case for humanities students in
co-op placements.
McRae is the Executive Director of the Co-operative
Education Program and Career Services at the
University of Victoria. UVic is among the universities
offering the most co-op programs in Canada. And
they range from engineering and business to fine arts
and the humanities.
With critical thinking, writing, research and
communications skills, humanities students have the
core capabilities that many employers say they need
in the workplace, says McRae. She believes there
are parts of the economy where this fit really works
well; for example, in small non-profit or advocacy
organizations or in publishing or communications and
marketing firms.
The first step, however, is to address the perceptions
students have of co-op programs. “There are those
students who want to get a co-op placement and
they try and they are successful, and it allows them
to step into labour force more successfully,”
says McRae.
“Then there are those who have said to themselves,
‘Who would hire me?’ They self-select themselves
out of the program. And when they graduate, they
struggle (in landing a job),” she adds.
Interestingly, UVic has Canada’s only common law
school with a co-op program. Why offer co-op to
law students? “Because not everyone who comes
through law school wants to become a lawyer,”
explains McRae. “A law co-op allows them to be
exposed to different environments where law studies
are used—government, non-profits groups, advocacy
organizations—and they decide where they want to
step into.”
Co-op is an educational model that enriches the
education experience. It allows students to apply
their theory in a workplace setting; it reinforces that
learning and it builds capabilities that they don’t get
in the classroom, says McRae. UVic partners with
the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce and
Camuson College to promote a simple message to
the employer community: Hire co-op students—they
are good for business.
“It can also be a launch pad for entrepreneurialism,”
she explains. “Often (these graduates) have to create
a job themselves. Students see what is possible
through a co-op work term with small business.
There are terrific opportunities to see how
business works.”
Students creating jobs and companies is one
the central drivers of “zone learning” at Ryerson
University. In the zone or incubators, students
experience a collaborative community where they
work to solve industry problems or create new
products. With on-site advice from faculty, industry
experts and entrepreneurs, students have the
space to create start-ups or work with business. It
is a model that is growing within the university with
five zones currently: Digital Media Zone; Centre for
Urban Energy; Fashion Zone; Design Fabrication
Zone; and Transmedia Zone. As Ryerson President
Sheldon Levy has said, “Rather than students having
to find a job, they are job creators.”
While “zone learning” is a new take on the educationwork experience model, it demonstrates what is
possible when young people apply knowledge in
work environments.
As Judene Pretti, Director of the Centre for the
Advancement of Co-operative Education at the
University of Waterloo, notes: “A graduate from
university may know what they can offer a company,
but co-op students know what they can contribute
and they can articulate that in interviews.”
Employers see the benefits too and act on them.
“The vast majority of the new graduates we hire
have co-op experience,” says Angela Morin, a
workforce planning specialist on assignment to
Dow Chemical Canada. “It really gives them a
competitive advantage.”
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
20
Employers benefit as much as students or interns
from these experiences. Employer participation in
structured workplace training programs can enhance
firm reputation and boost workplace morale.45 More
importantly, work-integrated learning is associated
with increased firm productivity and more efficient
and effective talent recruitment.46
suggests that WIL at universities could be enhanced
through the development of course materials that
are more directly relevant to work environments.49
The Council also argues for a higher degree of
collaboration between PSE institutions, employers
and students in establishing clear parameters for an
internship to ensure it provides educational value.50
CIBC’s Benjamin Tal has cited a worrying trend that
“one in five youth not working today has never held
a job. That is 40 per cent higher than the long-term
average and just shy of the record high reached in the
late 1990s.”47
The Higher Education Council of Ontario reports
that just under half of Ontario university students
participate in WIL such as co-ops, internships and
practicums before graduation, while roughly 70 per
cent of Ontario college students gain such experience
over the course of their studies.48 The Council
45
Sterling, Ashley et al. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. What is an Internship? An Inventory and Analysis of “Internship”
Opportunities Available to Ontario Postsecondary Students. July 2014. http://heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Internship%20ENG.pdf
46
International Labour Organization (ILO). Overview of Apprenticeship Systems and Issues. November 2012. www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/
public/---ed_emp/---ifp_skills/documents/genericdocument/wcms_190188.pdf
47
Tal, Benjamin. CIBC Economics. Dimensions of Youth Unemployment in Canada. June 20, 2013.
48
The college number is higher because college and polytechnic education is built on the idea of connecting education to employment,
and applied education requires active engagement with employers. A university’s primary motivation is knowledge creation, not job
creation. Universities often provide broader education that prepares students more generally for the workforce. University programs
cannot always be directly linked to specific career. University-based WIL pioneered in Canada in 1957 at the University of Waterloo.
49
Sattler and Peters. Work-Integrated Learning in Ontario’s Postsecondary Sector: The Experience of Ontario Graduates. 2013.
50
Sterling, Ashley et al. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. What is an Internship? An Inventory and Analysis of “Internship”
Opportunities Available to Ontario Postsecondary Students. July 2014.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
21
Tapping the Talent Pipeline: Why Co-op
Works for Employers
Consider it a four-month or eight-month long
interview. Co-op students are primarily hired for
employers’ recruitment needs and the chance to
see if the students might be a good fit for
future positions.
For employers, there is the added bonus of the fresh
ideas and enthusiasm that students bring with them
from the classroom into the organization, says Angela
Morin, a workforce planning specialist on assignment
to Dow Chemical Canada. On a practical level, hiring
managers have the chance to complete outstanding
or special projects by employing students at lower
cost than full-time employees.
In some cases, employers have to compete for
students. Consider the example of Dow in Calgary.
“It is a competitive market, with the oil and gas
sector,” says Morin. “We do compete for the
same talent in engineering, so we have to stand
out as a strong employer. We know applicants are
interviewing at other companies.”
Dow seeks co-op students from what it calls
“strategic universities” where the quality of students
has been high.
Rick Miner suggests that all post-secondary educators
should have funding earmarked for developing
education and training programs that lead to jobs
in emerging sectors. To expand WIL at universities
while mitigating university graduates’ need to enrol
in college programs to find employment, Miner
proposes integrated university/college programs
with, for example, three years of university education
and one year of applied training in college.52
Once employers are sold on co-op, the challenge
can be persuading them to hire first-year students.
“It’s fairly easy to convince business to hire students
in their third and fourth work terms, but it is much
harder in the first or second work term,” says Pretti
at UWaterloo.
Co-op connections also allow companies to deepen
their relations with universities and colleges. IBM
hires as many as 500 co-op students each year,
mostly for positions in its Toronto and Ottawa labs.
With an emphasis on “big data” research and its realworld benefits, IBM is also collaborating with several
universities in southern Ontario on a platform for
research collaboration and innovation. Expanding
programs in data analytics and their skilled graduates
is one of the reasons for this collaboration.
For Siemens Canada, connections with universities
and colleges are allowing them to stretch the
internship model in a new direction, bringing to
Canada the best features of the German system. The
company has created a new pilot program to offer
more intensive, multi-year internships, recruiting
second-year students in colleges and universities
in Ontario and Alberta—namely at the Northern
Alberta Institute of Technology, Mohawk College,
McMaster University, the University of Waterloo and
the University of Alberta.
In order to expand WIL programs, post-secondary
education providers need not only funds but also
private-sector participants. As the World Economic
Forum points out, “job-specific and work-based skills
are difficult to learn other than on the job.”53 Recently,
the federal government announced funding for 3,000
postgraduate internships in “high-demand fields” as
part of its Youth Employment Strategy.54 This
funding will be available primarily for small- and
medium-sized firms. It complements the funding
of Mitacs, an organization that offers research
internships in the private sector for graduate students
and post-doctoral fellows
52
Note that applied research projects in colleges and polytechnics are a form of WIL.
53
World Economic Forum. Matching Skills and Labour Market Needs: Building Social Partnerships for Better Skills and Better Jobs. January 2014.
www3.weforum.org/docs/GAC/2014/WEF_GAC_Employment_MatchingSkillsLabourMarket_Report_2014.pdf
54
Office of the Prime Minister. News Release: Prime Minister Stephen Harper Announces Paid Internships in High Demand Fields. May 2, 2014.
www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2014/05/02/prime-minister-stephen-harper-announces-paid-internships-high-demand-fields
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
22
Complementary Credentials: the Role of
Graduate Certificate Programs
While not entirely a new approach, adding skills with a
certificate program is increasingly an option for
post-secondary graduates to fine-tune themselves
for employment.
Graduate certificate programs are mushrooming
across Canada. They are responding to demand
among undergraduates or recent graduates for
additional credentials related to jobs in demand and
they also offer upskilling for existing employees with
post-secondary degrees.
“We’ve had tremendous growth in the certificate
programs,” says Claude Brulé, Vice-President,
Academic, at Algonquin College in Ottawa. In the
past five years, the number of graduate certificate
programs at Algonquin has grown by 60 per cent, with
a doubling of the number of students from 800 to
1,600 per academic year.
Qualified applicants are out-stripping available
spots in these programs at members of Polytechnics
Canada.51 In 2012-13, over 23,000 applicants were
turned away because member institutions were
unable to accommodate them. In that year, about
11,300 students were enrolled full-time in
their programs.
Graduate certificates are short-duration programs,
usually one to two years if taken on a full-time basis,
although many are offered on a part-time or even
on an online basis. There is a strong emphasis on
connecting students with industry experts and
offering workplace experience, where feasible.
“The instructing cadre is professionals in the field,
people who are current practitioners,” explains Brulé.
“They have a foot in the industry and in the college
and they bring the very latest to the classroom. That
has great appeal to students.”
At the British Columbia Institute of Technology
(BCIT), Dr. Barry Hogan, Dean, Academic Planning and
Quality Assurance, says, “The typical student profile
for these programs is a university degree graduate
who has two to five years of work experience and has
determined a more specific career path and needs
these qualifications to enter that field.
51
“These programs give grads an edge by providing
advanced education and skills in very specific
disciplines,” adds Hogan. “It allows a bachelor of arts
or science student to gain a significant expertise in a
specific field, thereby enhancing their employability
and career prospects.”
The programs require completion of a prior postsecondary credential, usually a university degree.
For example, Algonquin College offers a one-year
graduate certificate in international business
management, where the admission requirement is a
college diploma (minimum) or a university degree in
business or a related area. Seneca College offers an
eight-month graduate certificate in bio-informatics
that requires a recognized degree or a three-year
diploma in biotechnology or biology. That program
was designed to meet the increased demand for
trained bio-informatics professionals. BCIT currently
has 21 advanced certificates and one graduate
certificate, with several more in development.
Programs are selected and developed based on
a combination of labour market demand and the
institution’s programming strategy or mandate.
BCIT considers both labour demand and supply,
potential sources of students, stakeholder support
and competitive analysis. “We are not interested in
developing a program that has a saturated supply
of labour, or if other post-secondary institutions are
already satisfying the educational need,” says Hogan.
Upskilling opportunities are available at universities’
continuing education programs, which work with local
employers on training programs. For example, the
Faculty of Continuing Education at the University of
Calgary offers programs and certificates designed
with companies (often in the oil and gas sector) to
enhance the skills of employees across a range of
areas, from human resources to project management
to finance, marketing and engineering certificates.
As Brulé notes, “Those extra skills and knowledge
help (certificate) graduates differentiate their résumés
from someone else’s.”
For many graduates, they can make the difference
between finding a job versus getting on track to
a career.
Polytechnics Canada members are: Algonquin College, British Columbia Institute of Technology, Conestoga College Institute of
Technology and Advanced Learning, George Brown College, Humber Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, Northern Alberta
Institute of Technology, Red River College, SAIT Polytechnic, Seneca College, Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced
Learning, and Saskatchewan Polytechnic.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
23
Employers Can Step up with Internships
Launching their careers is often the biggest
challenge facing many recent graduates. “And one
of the things missing for launching is related work
experience,” says Kelly McDougald, Chair of Career
Edge, and Managing Director at Knightsbridge
Human Capital Solutions in Toronto.
Career Edge offers paid internships with leading
organizations and SMEs. For 18 years, it has been an
approach that works. Half of all interns are offered
a full-time position with their host employer. “The
other half end up launching their careers in a stream
that is commensurate with their skills set and career
aspirations,” says Naguib Gouda, President of
Career Edge.
For employers, Career Edge lowers the risk and
the cost of taking on interns. In fact, interns are
employees of Career Edge during their placements
with employers. And with 1,000 employers involved,
mainly in the Greater Toronto Region, and 12,000
interns placed since 1996, “the proof is in the
pudding,” says Gouda.
RBC is one of the founding members of Career
Edge and values the diverse, skilled talent that is
available through the organization, which is not a
temp or employment agency but a not-for-profit,
self-sustaining social enterprise. RBC sees value well
beyond its own use and has extended support to
make Career Edge interns available to small business
clients on a subsidized basis.
“At the very least, employers get what they need for
a project but more so, they contribute to helping
individuals overcome the catch-22 cycle and get
the work experience to launch their careers,”
says Gouda.
Interns only get one shot at an internship through
Career Edge because it has a long lineup of people
who need help, says Gouda. “Interns know this is
their one shot, so they usually work really hard to
show they can do the job,” he says.
For small- and medium-sized business, the fact that
Career Edge is the employer of the interns means
the payroll and taxes are taken off the SMEs’ hands.
The organization’s programs also help people with
a self-declared disability who need some workplace
accommodation as well as recent immigrants to
Canada who may be highly credentialed but lack
Canadian work experience.
Many of the positions are in finance, IT and HR.
The value proposition for interns is experience,
networking and mentorship. “If they experience that
during their education, they likely won’t need Career
Edge,” says Gouda. “We exist to help people launch
their careers and help them overcome barriers.”
For young people, McDougald’s message is learn
how to interview and network. “With meta search
engines, it is not an issue of finding jobs but figuring
out how to get through the door,” she says. “I call it
‘job search avoidance’ when you sit on the Internet
all day. It’s about personal networking and the hidden
job market.”
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
24
Several international examples of institutionalized
WIL may be instructive for Canada. South Korea, like
Canada, has a high university enrolment rate and a
skills deficit in the trades. It introduced vocational
training programs designed specifically to attract
students who tend to be biased against manual and
technical labour. In 2010, the Korean government
began to convert existing colleges and trade schools
into “Meister Schools,” vocational schools that have
been rebranded to attract prestige. The Meister
Schools have collaborated with universities to ensure
vocational students can move directly to a university
program upon graduation if they so choose.55
Korea’s choice of the word “meister,” the German
word for “craftsman,” to retitle its vocational
schools is testament to the prestige of Germany’s
apprenticeship programs. In an international study
conducted by McKinsey, Germany was the only
country of nine in which students viewed academic
and vocational training as equally respectable.56
How does Germany Do It?
With its low youth unemployment rate, Germany’s
education system—and its “dual training”
approach—gets plenty of attention in other nations,
including ours.
Germany, similar to Canada, is a federation where
education is a state (i.e. provincial/ territorial)
responsibility. The difference is that Germany has
chosen to co-operate on a national basis.
The success of Germany’s model of vocational
training can be attributed to its joint management
by many stakeholders.57 The federal Ministry of
Economic Affairs and Technology in Germany
regulates the programs by establishing apprenticeship
durations and evaluation requirements for each
profession58; the Ministry of Education and Research
sets core curricula of apprenticeship programs
and supervises research and development projects
relating to instruction, which are conducted by a
Federal Institute for Vocational Training; states fund
in-school training; participating companies pay
for apprenticeship training; unions are involved in
apprenticeship wage negotiations with the private
sector; and economic chambers advise, monitor and
assess participating firms to ensure compliance with
the ministry’s standards. This multi-stakeholder
model allows Germany to institutionalize WIL on a
broad scale. The vast majority of this type of training
takes place in vocational schools—effectively a part
of the secondary school system for 16 to 18
year-olds. This differs significantly from the type of
WIL experiences in post-secondary institutions.
Granted, the German system requires a high
degree of regulation that few other countries would
embrace. Yet, with its powerful alignment across
government, educators and employers, Germany’s
system speaks to the value of cooperation and
commitment among labour market actors.
There is national buy-in on the value of combining
theory and practice in Germany’s education system.
For stronger labour market outcomes, Canada
would do well to emulate the shared purpose of
Germany’s model.59
55
McKinsey & Company. Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works. January 2013. http://mckinseyonsociety.com/educationto-employment/report/
56
Ibid.
57
World Economic Forum. Matching Skills and Labour Market Needs: Building Social Partnerships for Better Skills and Better Jobs. January 2014.
www3.weforum.org/docs/GAC/2014/WEF_GAC_Employment_MatchingSkillsLabourMarket_Report_2014.pdf
58
In Germany, many more occupations—as many as 350—are apprenticeable than in Canada. These include occupations beyond the
skilled trades, such as retail and finance roles.
59
See also: “Learning from success: What Canada can learn from Germany’s dual training system.” Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Blog. March 18, 2014. Available online here: www.chamber.ca/media/blog/140318-learning-from-success-what-canada-can-learn-fromgermanys-dual-training-system/
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
25
In a survey of 2,700 employers across nine countries,60
McKinsey found a significant gap between employers’
and educators’ perceptions of the competencies new
hires possess and concluded that “the employers
who engage the most, and the earliest, have the
best outcomes.” The Learning Partnership points
out that some Canadian high schools have already
successfully partnered with businesses to improve
career education. There are a growing number of
“try a trade” initiatives in high school systems.61 By
allowing students to receive training in a skilled trade,
a high-school facility encourages students to consider
pursuing the trade, along with future opportunities
for work-based learning.
Work-integrated learning has also been focused on
the students, with little emphasis placed on the role
it could play for educators. In Ontario, for example,
teachers are incentivized through salary increases and
promotions to engage in professional development
throughout their careers. This process works through
a series of credits awarded for obtaining additional
qualifications; however, little emphasis is put on
building a greater understanding of the public and
private sector outside education. In the U.K., Heads,
Teachers and Industry Ltd. (HTI), a registered charity,
provides training courses that enable teachers to
experience secondments in business.62 HTI is also
active in promoting dialogue between education,
business and government through a strategic forum
called HTI Connect.
60
These countries include India, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Morocco.
61
For example, M.E. LaZerte High School in Edmonton houses a new welding fabrication facility, thanks to funding provided by both
Edmonton Public Schools and the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the
United States and Canada – Local Union 488, and the Alberta Pipe Trades College.
62
www.hti.org.uk/pdfs/pu/HTI_prospectus2012.pdf
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
26
6. National Leadership and Coordination
Since the education-to-employment transition in
Canada involves a variety of stakeholders (provincial
and territorial governments, post-secondary
institutions, private training providers such as career
colleges, students, employers, parents and secondary
schools throughout the country), many have called
on the federal government to coordinate efforts to
improve labour market outcomes for youth. While the
provinces and territories take principal responsibility
for their education systems, the federal government
can take the lead in expanding LMI, improving career
decision-making and facilitating WIL and lifelong
learning. The federal government has focused its
youth “transition to work” efforts on helping youth
at risk or with barriers to employment through the
Youth Employment Strategy. The strategy supports
paid internships for recent post-secondary graduates,
among other initiatives.
There is a strong consensus among commentators
that the responsibility to improve LMI falls on the
federal government. As Tyler Meredith writes,
“only government” can coordinate a national effort
to address skills mismatching as only government
“straddles all of [the] domains” involved, including
LMI collection and dissemination, funding provision
to WIL programs and the ability to incentivize both
employers and workers.63
The first two recommendations by the House
of Commons Standing Committee on Finance
concerning youth unemployment are for the federal
government to provide improved LMI to secondary
and post-secondary students.64 Don Drummond is
more specific in his call on the federal government
to take the lead by strengthening Statistics Canada’s
capacity to expand LMI collection and by ensuring
ESDC makes the information available to all
Canadians via a “single portal” for LMI.65 He also
recommends the Forum of Labour Market Ministers
play a coordinating role. Rick Miner similarly
recommends that the federal government provide
Statistics Canada with the funds necessary to reinstate
the long-form census, establish new recurring labour
force and labour market demand surveys and make
LMI publicly available and free of charge.66
63
Meredith, Tyler. “Asking the Right Questions, Solving the Right Problems.” Policy Options. May-June 2014.
64
House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. Youth Employment in Canada: Challenges and Potential Solutions. June 2014.
www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.
65
Drummond, Don. “Wanted: Good Canadian Labour Market Information.” IRPP Insight. June 2014. http://irpp.org/wp-content/
uploads/2014/06/insight-no6.pdf
66
Miner, Rick. Miner Management Consultants. “The Great Canadian Skills Mismatch: People Without Jobs, Jobs Without People and
MORE.” March 2014. www.minerandminer.ca/data/Miner_March_2014_final(2).pdf
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
27
Miner also argues that the federal government cannot
improve students’ career decision-making without
taking an active role in the provincial and territorial
education systems, claiming that “[to] assume all
post-secondary institutions and their home provinces
will routinely act in the best interests of Canada
is both naïve and simplistic.” Canada is the only
G8 country that does not have a federal education
ministry to argue that Canada needs a national
strategy for education, according to Miner. He would
have this national strategy include broad measures
such as mandatory career counselling for high school
students, parents, teachers and administrators
across Canada.
The OECD has called on the Canadian government
to take a more active role in promoting skills
upgrading.67 Specifically, the OECD argues that the
federal government should help the provinces and
territories harmonize education systems to facilitate
credit transfers among post-secondary institutions,
allowing more flexibility for workers interested in
relocating. The OECD also suggests that universities
will need government funding to promote and
accommodate increased enrollment in certain fields
of study, such as STEM, that lead to employment in
sectors with rising demand for labour.68
The House of Commons Standing Committee on
Finance agrees that the federal government should
promote WIL in the science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics fields by continuing to invest in
internships (as it did in the 2014 budget) and by
providing funds to expand apprenticeship and coop programs. The Committee also argues that the
federal government needs to conduct research to
evaluate the effectiveness of methods of WIL such as
internships. Similarly, the Higher Education Quality
Council of Ontario believes government is responsible
for ensuring the educational quality of internships,
though the Council does not specify whether that
responsibility should fall principally on the federal
government or on the provinces and territories.69
67
OECD. Economic Survey of Canada. 2014.
68
Ibid. p. 31
69
Sterling, Ashley et al. “What is an Internship? An Inventory and Analysis of “Internship” Opportunities Available to Ontario
Postsecondary Students”. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. July 2014.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
28
7. Recommendations
Government, education providers and businesses will
need to work together much more closely to mitigate
skills mismatching. The federal government should
take the lead, coordinating provinces and territories in
a national effort to reduce inefficiencies in the labour
market while ensuring students have the fundamental
skills necessary to enter the workforce.
Labour Market Information
Across the spectrum, from education to employment,
Canadians lack robust labour market information.
Students need a better understanding of the labour
market as they decide whether to pursue PSE and
their PSE options; parents and guidance counsellors
need to ensure their influence on youth reflects
current labour market conditions; secondary and postsecondary education providers need to tailor curricula
to help students develop in-demand skills; employers
need LMI to inform their recruitment and training
programs, to know what is in the talent pipeline and
whether to undertake the costly process of hiring
foreign workers and to demonstrate the demand for
changing PSE programs or curricula; and workers
need to make strategic decisions as they navigate the
labour market throughout their careers.
Actions should include:
• Mandate and fund a publicly accountable agency
(whether it be Statistics Canada or a new arm’s
length LMI agency) to collect and prepare labour
market data for public consumption, while
charging the Forum of Labour Market Ministers
with facilitating the coordination of data from key
stakeholders, among other measures.
• Ensure LMI is detailed at the local level and
reflects trends in skills requirements for
occupations across a variety of sectors to
maximize the information’s usefulness to
individual students, workers and employers.
Specifically, government should expand the
Job Vacancy Survey from the level of economic
regions to the local/CMA level, wherever
possible, reintroduce and upgrade the Workplace
and Employee Survey, renew the Youth in
Transition Survey and review and sustain the
National Graduates Survey.
• Coordinate the dissemination of LMI to key
stakeholders—in particular, youth and students—
and post LMI in a freely available and easily
digestible format.
• Promote the use of LMI as a career decisionmaking tool for students and workers.
• Require universities, colleges and polytechnics
(i.e. publicly funded PSE institutions) to publicly
disclose data on jobs placements of graduates
and to distribute that information to current and
prospective students.
• Create a mechanism to ensure data on student
and learning outcomes available at the provincial
level be made known at the national level and to
ensure publicly funded education and training
providers make their data on students, programs,
outcomes and in-demand programs known
through a nationally organized LMI entity.
• Incorporate skills as a level of detail within the
National Occupational Classification (NOC) to
facilitate communication and understanding
between educators, students and employers.
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
29
Work-integrated Learning and Skills Development
Actions should include:
Students who have engaged in work-integrated
learning at the PSE-level report the experience
clarified their career interests and influenced their
career goals.70 WIL also uniquely allows students
to gain through the work experience the skills that
employers expect new hires to bring to the job.
Government, education-providers and employers
should therefore work together to allow more
students to reap the benefits of WIL. Educators, too,
could benefit from greater exposure to business, in
particular, as part of their professional development.
Within the current system, the role of career
counsellors should be more clearly defined and
adapted to play a greater role in fostering links
between academia and business.
•
Increase funding to co-op and internship
programs offered through PSE institutions.
•
Conduct research to illuminate the relationship
between various types of WIL and firm
productivity gains.
•
Increase incentives, such as cooperative education
tax credits and subsidy programs, to employers
that partner with secondary and PSE institutions
to provide WIL to students and graduates.
•
Provincial/territorial consideration of
mechanisms to improve education-business
relationships, such as business secondments for
educators.
Poor adult literacy and numeracy rates,71 along with
declining numeracy and science performance among
secondary school students,72 indicate that Canada
needs to renew its efforts to provide students at all
levels of education with basic skills. Meanwhile,
graduates of university programs in the humanities
have difficulty in marketing their skills to employers,
while employers cannot easily recognize skill mastery
among recent graduates.
•
Provincial/territorial consideration of federal
support to strengthen the guidance counsellor
function and update guidance counsellors’
knowledge of PSE and training systems.
•
Develop ways to promote basic and workplace
skill development into all curricula.
•
Include summaries of skills mastery in student
transcripts to allow for more effective signalling
to employers.
70
Sattler, Peggy and Julie Peters. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Work-Integrated Learning in Ontario’s Postsecondary
Sector; The Experience of Ontario Graduates. 2013.
71
Statistics Canada. Skills in Canada: First Results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
2013. www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-555-x/89-555-x2013001-eng.pdf
72
Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. Measuring up: Canadian Results of the OECD PISA Study. 2013. http://cmec.ca/
Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/318/PISA2012_CanadianReport_EN_Web.pdf
For further information, please contact:
Sarah Anson-Cartwright | Director, Skills Policy | 613.238.4000 (236) | [email protected]
A Battle We Can’t Afford to Lose | The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
30
Ottawa
420-360 Albert Street
Ottawa, ON
K1R 7X7
613.238.4000
613.238.7643
Toronto
901-55 University Avenue
Toronto, ON
M5J 2H7
416.868.6415
416.868.0189
Montreal
709-1155 University Street
Montreal, QC
H3B 3A7
514.866.4334
514.866.7296
Calgary
PO Box 38057
Calgary, AB
T3K 5G9
403.271.0595
403.226.6930
Chamber.ca